Freya Manfred
Keynote Speaker:
“Truth and Humor: A Reading of Poetry and Prose”
Freya’s roots run deep in the Sinclair Lewis Writers Conference soil as she has been both a keynote speaker and presenter over the conference’s 30-year run. Though an accomplished poet, Freya is often asked to read from her own work and that of other poets at literary events.
Her ninth book of poetry, Loon In Late November Water, Red Dragonfly Press, was published in 2019. Over the course of her accomplished writing career, Freya has won a Harvard/Radcliffe Fellowship, an NEA Grant, and the 2009 Midwest Booksellers' Choice Award. Her memoir, Frederick Manfred: A Daughter Remembers was nominated for a Minnesota Book Award and an Iowa Historical Society Award. Her second memoir, about her award-winning artist sons, Bly and Rowan Pope, is Raising Twins: A True Life Adventure. She's married to screenwriter Thomas Pope.
Freya’s keynote talk is entitled Truth and Humor—A Reading of Poetry and Prose. She will read from Frederick Manfred's recently reissued 1945 novel, Boy Almighty, and from her published poetry, which evokes the sacred and human aspects of family, friendship and the natural world, calling us to “grow in hope with the earth.”